Felinwe wrote:Let's be real, you're really getting worked up that the staff use a special account for that purpose rather than boosting their own LDRs off fixed updated and improved versions of ancient maps? And come on, skewing the entire level devs list? It bumped whoever is at #200 down off the list, which at 12.75 LDR isn't exactly the biggest achievement in the world. Sure it'd be better off if the account had a fixed LDR of 0, or 5, or 10, or whatever number makes you happy, but it's not this "ethical problem". Admins, maybe look into this <---

Hik is correct in that it does skew the list, even if it's just by a small margin or one spot. Fairer overall to not have it taking the slot. I don't think it's a particularly important problem in the grand scheme of things, but it's not insignificant and would certainly be nice to have addressed.

Hikarikaze wrote:

DoomWrath wrote:Especially since all the maps on that account are currently my reworks. It'd be far from fair for me to have that much LDR boost especially when I have no current approved maps anyway.

It's not that different from having an alt gaining LDR boosts if you're the one spear-heading the operation of an account shared with multiple people who aren't even visible in how things are running. The account is really just mostly you but with a supposedly collaborative "purpose" as an excuse and red herring to justify the artificial and unneeded LDR boost.

There is no red herring or false claim here. The 'map' account is collaborative, that's why Eric created the 'map' account. It's true I am the main user, but access is open for any other member of staff if they see fit. Maybe it comes down to the fact I've been here since 2011 and have a bigger connection to the classic maps of the day so put effort into remaking them even if approved MP is quiet these days? As for the LDR, I have no ability to remove it besides potentially adding disapproved maps to work in counterbalance to the approved maps. One restricted map has taken 4LDR off the 'map' account, while each approved map is giving 3-5 LDR. In the end that doesn't really matter too much - I've asked Eric about removing it from the best map creators list or removing its LDR, so stay tuned on that matter.

Hikarikaze wrote:

Felinwe wrote:Even the map's new description says its a work in progress and they'll keep updating it.

What's your point? A work in progress can still be criticized or disliked, although it would be premature to do so.

On another note, it'd be nice if the description no longer said "the original realwar" because this new rework isn't the original anymore.

Uses the original concept, but yes, it's a somewhat different map in its layout. Changed to "Realwar: based on the original map by X Death." as I think that fits the map better.

Hikarikaze wrote:

Felinwe wrote: they seemed to have added the kinds of things you brought up, the map now doesn't have that big spamfest in the middle anymore, the towers aren't campy anymore, there's plenty of cover and almost a second route through the water. Is that not what you asked for?

Addressing the problem is one thing. Being content with how they addressed it is another. Anyone can still very well spam on top of the floating structure in the water because that area is completely open and there are still angles from the roofs of each tower that can still allow for spamming down to the ground despite the lasers preventing people from standing closer to the edges to do the same exact thing.

I still see fundamental issues existing so no, it really isn't what I asked for. The staff aren't making solid cases or responses by citing play tests as that's observational/anecdotal evidence which are highly subjective and prone to bias.

Most of what Felinwe said seems to be fairly true from spectating matches, playtests, and opinions of players asked during matches. In the end, playtesting is anecdotal, but it is also a big part of how maps get approved in the first place. Once they tick the technical boxes, which the current version of realwar does, then the rest comes down to how well the map plays, how popular the map is (if only purely as an indication of whether a map also seems good to a larger number of playtesters than just Eric - or the approval team these days).

The angles you can put fire into the middle area from are greatly reduced, the middle area now has more variety of cover, places you can go, the floating bunker provides a good angle of return fire on the towers. Spam can be done, but is mostly ineffective as it's just blocked by walls.

Figure 1: Players in tower windows can't fire at any targets in the water.Figure 2: Players on top of the tower can't hit close in targets in the water, and only have a small area where rounds might enter a small patch of water near the bunker. It's possible to change his angle of attack by jumping, but this damages accuracy significantly. To cross this player's beat zone, simply wait for a gap in the beat zone and swim past.Figure 3: Players in the bunker can remove players in the lower window, who are the ones responsible for covering the exit from the water close to the towers.Figure 4 shows players on the lower window covering the water, also able to counter players in the bunker. These players are in a vulnerable position and not difficult to counter. They can retreat to the rear window of the tower to increase their 'gun depression' but this limits their visibility and capability of attacking the bunker.

Taking players out of the bunker from the towers is difficult as you can't see the bunker from the towers. It's up to your teammates to position themselves in suitable spots, have one person cover the other.

One thing I am considering is extending the water area into the tower or just beyond it (perhaps with one-way pushers?) to allow players to circumvent the towers more easily: https://i.imgur.com/HYqCgpC.png

If there's one thing you reply to in this topic, I'd like to hear what you believe the fundamental issues that still exist with the map are.

Apologies for jumping around so much in this post, I'm taking points as I read up and down recent posts, doing what I can to act on them or provide explanations and questions.

In the past year that I've been playing multiplayer again all mostly I see are the sniper and rail gun maps, and I miss the variety of maps and arena maps I saw in 2015-2016. Railwars are fun, but when it is all that people want to play, it gets boring. There are more people playing custom games and doing saw maps, parkour, and school roleplay than pvp.

Added with having to fight people with 500+ping often while in railwars is not fun at all. I remember the days of thinking a ping of a 100 was too much while playing on the old Washington server.

ShiftyOne wrote:In the past year that I've been playing multiplayer again all mostly I see are the sniper and rail gun maps, and I miss the variety of maps and arena maps I saw in 2015-2016. Railwars are fun, but when it is all that people want to play, it gets boring. There are more people playing custom games and doing saw maps, parkour, and school roleplay than pvp.

You can always create a match of any other map and gather interest in the discord server and reply to other open topics regarding these maps so they get disapproved/re-worked or other stuff.

phsc wrote:WHY ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT REALISM IN A FUTURISTIC 2D FLASH SCROLL SHOOTER THAT HAS ALIENS AND UNREALISTIC UNHOLDABLE GUNS AND REGENERATION AND MANY OTHER THINGS, LOSTMYDOLLAR/JASON EDEN PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC GAME AND STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE BECAUSE IT WONT

July was the date the map got changed to a horrendous state. It did not get popular. I warned of sniperwars and railwars taking over the servers for weeks and months, it happens. I warned of a lot less maps being hosted, it happens. I even warned about players migrating to custom maps, it happened.

It's an exquisite coincidence to see that the game took a huge dive down the toilet right after the map got touched. Players leaving, complaining that the game is dead again, tryhards return, new maps get approved, nobody really cares and plays them for 2 minutes.

Since when was the last time a map had a whopping 16 players in a match that seemed like a crazy active and fun map to play for nostalgia, AND holds players for over an hour with 14+ players. Since July since realwar itself got touched.

I gave doomwrath that suggestion but he shot it down quickly. Because it would ruin its title and originality. But what he's done, he made it too complicated, there's futuristic weapons, and it's not consistent. Very Unclear of logic right there. "Real" war with futuristic things set before 1970s lol.

Compare, 2 map makers wanted this map touched, when I gave all reasonings to leave it alone. It gets touched, and the game flops right away. 2 map makers, vs me. They want personal gain for plays and popularity, for me on the other side, that tries to give all reason to keep the game alive with one map to sustain players and give portions to other newer maps. And help get and push badass maps for approval. Basically Democratic vs Republican in another perspective.

It goes closer to conclusion that staff and other unlogical map makers want the game dead as intentional. Eric ignores, and staff ignores. PB2.5 will have 1 shot maps again. So this effects that "pre-released" game as well.

The best solution is giving all 16 players yippe sniper rifles, and having needles on the 2 towers to reduce spamming at it's best. Not map's realwar, X Death's

Star Fox McCloud wrote:July was the date the map got changed to a horrendous state. It did not get popular. I warned of sniperwars and railwars taking over the servers for weeks and months, it happens. I warned of a lot less maps being hosted, it happens. I even warned about players migrating to custom maps, it happened.

It's an exquisite coincidence to see that the game took a huge dive down the toilet right after the map got touched. Players leaving, complaining that the game is dead again, tryhards return, new maps get approved, nobody really cares and plays them for 2 minutes.

Here's the very own game developer's say on inactivity because you don't care what anybody says:

Star Fox McCloud wrote:Compare, 2 map makers wanted this map touched, when I gave all reasonings to leave it alone. It gets touched, and the game flops right away. 2 map makers, vs me. They want personal gain for plays and popularity, for me on the other side, that tries to give all reason to keep the game alive with one map to sustain players and give portions to other newer maps. And help get and push badass maps for approval. Basically Democratic vs Republican in another perspective.

Let me tell you a story:

I started makings maps for fun, to see how I could express my imagination and contribute a few maps, some time later I started looking at my older maps and I started improving my quality.

One day, an user called "Jonb7" posted a removal request for x death-realwar so I decided to share my thoughts on it agreeing that the map needed to be removed because I didn't think an update made sense, I was proven wrong (And I'm glad I was) because the map is no longer sitting and holding left click.

After that, you, "Icygodz", "Icergodz" or "Star Fox McCloud" decided to hold a grudge on me just because of a map, and making up stuff about me, simply for participating in a forum that has the goal of working on approved maps' problems.

Now just because I decided to share my opinions, decided to give criticism on an exploitable map, I have an user obsessed with me over a bunch of pixels just because I got it fixed, and the staff couldn't care less.

phsc wrote:WHY ARE YOU GUYS TALKING ABOUT REALISM IN A FUTURISTIC 2D FLASH SCROLL SHOOTER THAT HAS ALIENS AND UNREALISTIC UNHOLDABLE GUNS AND REGENERATION AND MANY OTHER THINGS, LOSTMYDOLLAR/JASON EDEN PLEASE UNDERSTAND THIS IS NOT A REALISTIC GAME AND STOP TRYING TO TURN IT INTO ONE BECAUSE IT WONT

Star Fox McCloud wrote:I gave doomwrath that suggestion but he shot it down quickly. Because it would ruin its title and originality. But what he's done, he made it too complicated, there's futuristic weapons, and it's not consistent. Very Unclear of logic right there. "Real" war with futuristic things set before 1970s lol.

This is what happens when you have just a few people (or just one according to the description) in full control over the final version of the map. Even the map description reads off as "my opinion > your opinion" imo. Not everyone will find this satisfactory

Granted I never went on realwar enough to compare it with the current version so I can't speak on whether this version is complicated compared to the original, something feels rather off in this iteration. It feels a bit more constrained and restrictive in terms of possible plays you can do when the original seemed to be more simple and straightforward despite its flawed execution. I would edit the map to explore other alternatives than this but I'd need to be provided a source for the original map instead of remaking the original and potentially not having it be fully accurate

Also, I'd like to know the rationale for having a sniper rifle whose red laser almost blends in with an orange sky. A different color sky would better telegraph enemy snipers to a player since the laser would be more visible and stands out more blatantly. The laser as is is visible now but it could always be more visible to give opposing players a better chance at fighting against snipers. I could even argue that having a more visible laser would require more skill for a sniper to have, and also for those fighting against a sniper, and adds more value to killing someone with a sniper rifle. Getting blindly killed because you couldn't see the laser well enough tends to feel cheap (even if realistic but this game isn't meant to be realistic) as all "random" deaths from someone else do

Resi wrote:I reported it to the staff multiple times, but apparently this is fine. Really fine.

That's a normal response unfortunately. It shouldn't be "more or less fine" but eh, what do I know? The staff's become rather apathetic and lazy now in my perspective